The HK USC carbine is an overlooked HK product that performs well and offers excellent reliability. The pistol caliber carbine is an interesting development and one that has merit in some situations. As an example quite a few shooters don’t have access to a range longer than one hundred yards. Others fire their guns in indoor ranges. The pistol caliber makes sense for recreation. For personal defense a .45 ACP carbine is a formidable option.

The USC was imported only in .45 ACP caliber. The HK USC is a development of the UMP submachinegun. By all accounts a formidable submachinegun, the UMP was designed as an affordable option compared to the MP5. It turned out well. The USC is a semi auto version of the famous UMP. Many carbines lose a lot in translation from their fully automatic primogenitor. The UZI, as an example, firing from an open bolt isn’t a very accurate semi auto. The Auto Ordnance Thompson with its heavy trigger and eleven pound weight isn’t a very practical firearm. The HK USC on the other hand is a practical, reliable defensive firearm. 

The USC features a thumbhole stock designed to meet import limitations and the then in force Crime Bill (It’s a crime, Bill!).

The USC features a 16 inch hammer forged barrel as well. The frame is a reinforced polymer. It seems durable and will take hard knocks. The HK is a blowback operation rifle, no surprises there. The HK USC is about as far from a MP5 as you can get. It is quite different without the air of quality and bling of the MP5 but it is neither inexpensive nor ineffective.

The USC features the usual HK safety. The safety is easily operated and indents with a positive audible click. The bolt cocking handling is standard HK- pull the handle to the rear and release to rack the bolt or pull it to the rear and up to lock the bolt in place. The USC has a second bolt open device on the side of the receiver. Rack the bolt to the rear and use this bolt lock to lock the bolt in place and then release it with the same lever. You cannot release the bolt with the AR type side release if you locked it to the rear with the forward cocking lever. 

The sights are very good designs. The front sight is a hooded post. A hooded post of the HK type is among the fastest sights ever designed to get fast hits. The rear sight features an open sight for close work and an aperture sight for long range work. The combination is fast and accurate to about fifty yards.  The front sight is wide to subtend the aiming point at 75 to 100 yard diminishing accuracy potential. The rifle operates smoothly and offers excellent handling. The HK USC is supplied with two ten round magazines. Aftermarket magazines are available. I added two ProMag twenty round magazines. I don’t consider ProMag service grade- yet these magazines have worked fine for hundred of rounds. The HK carbine has a couple of aftermarket accessories including light rails for the top of the receiver and the sides of the receiver. My carbine does not have these. The rifle is delivered in an impressive drag bag with generous pockets. 

Firing impressions

For most uses I have fired standard 230 grain full metal jacket loads, hardball in common parlance. This load averages 850 fps in handguns with a five inch barrel and 920 fps in the 16 inch carbine barrel.

.45 ACP loads typically have a modest upcharge in velocity in a carbine length barrel. I used Remington UMC ammunition during this evaluation. The magazines are not difficult to load, even the longer twenty round units. They are no more difficult to load to full capacity than a 1911 handgun magazine as a reference.

The proper loading sequence is to lock the bolt to the rear using the operating handle. The magazine is locked into the magazine well. Then release the bolt to run forward and load the chamber. Firing the HK USC is a pleasant experience. The trigger is heavy at about ten pounds compression but manageable. The trigger is smooth enough and reset is sharp. Recoil is modest, less than .410 shotgun. The recoil is the steady thump thump of a .45 ACP. Firing quickly and addressing man sized targets from 15 to 50 yards the USC is easy to get hits with. Center the target and press the trigger.

The blade type sight is most useful to about 20 yards. It is open and fast but accuracy is limited at longer range. The aperture sight is useful. The USC is well regulated for the six o’clock hold at 25 yards. At 50 yards you hold dead on the target. The aperture sight is more useful at 50 yards. The front sight is so broad it subtends most of a small target making accuracy testing more difficult. Firing off hand the USC swings quickly, recoils little, and allows good hits and follow up shots quickly. Firing for accuracy off a benchrest is a little difficult with the long stick magazine, most of the accuracy testing was done off a barricade resting the forend against a wooden barricade. Firing carefully at a bright orange target at 50 yards I put five Remington UMC 230 grain FMJ bullets into 3=4 inches on demand. That is more than accurate enough for most uses. The best five shot group was obtained with the Remington 230 grain Golden Saber with a five shot 2.4 inch 50 yard group. The USC feeds hollowpoint and even lead SWC handloads. This is not only a piece history and a superior product, but a useful defensive firearm.  

“Is a 9mm carbine a good defense gun?”

Not optimal.

Not the best.

But good.

Does it meet a satisfactory minimum standard to be useful as a home defense or personal defense weapon?

And in this regard it is a resoundingly satisfactory, yes.

We don’t need to rehash the physics of pistol caliber rounds vs high velocity low mass rifle rounds like the 5.56/.223 and 5.45, the high velocity low mass rounds are the superior choice.

This does not make pistol calibers rounds an inadequate choice though. Inadequate would mean that the rounds and the platform combined do not meet the minimum standards for a home defense platform. They do. A handgun can make an adequate defense gun too, just suboptimal. There are things a carbine (or shotgun) can do better or easier than a handgun that make them better choices.

The Happy Middle Ground

The Pistol Caliber Carbines, especially the “pistol” (legally speaking per federal definitions) and SBR varieties with barrels in the 4″ to 8″ range, occupy a ‘pretty good‘ area in the middle of selected home defense and personal defense firearms. We’ll stick with the home defense role, as the personal defense role is dominated by pistols due to the pure convenience of carrying a pistol.

So is a pistol good enough for concealed carry also ‘good enough’ as a home defense firearm?

Yes, short answer.

Yes, with caveats. Better answer, probably.

If you carry a pistol that also carries a light, you are reasonably well set up for the home defense role. The light giving you flexibility on seeing and identifying unknowns and potential threats where interior lighting or ambient lighting may not be available or prudent. If you do something like add a larger capacity magazine and a flashlight when you are home or at night, this is also a reasonable if very involved solution.

But in this case you are still accepting each of the limitations of the handgun when you are in a situation where you don’t have to. 9x19mm in a JHP is an adequate defensive round, but not optimal. A handgun with 5+ shots inside it may be an adequate firearm, but again not optimal. Putting a light on and off at the home, or carrying with a light always on the pistol is likely to be adequate.

Personally, to avoid overhandling of loaded defensive firearms, I would use a seperate handgun entirely if it is feasible and that handgun will have a light at the minimum and a larger magazine than my carry pistol.

And while we may not want or need optimal, we can certainly benefit from better. Better than adequate.

PCC

There is one crucial item we do change when going to a pistol caliber carbine and one that we do not. We are adopting, in a generalized manner, ‘half’ of the advantages of a full rifle caliber carbine in something like 5.56.

Let’s address the item we are not getting first.

Ballistics

Regardless of the barrel length, pistol ammo is pistol ammo.

A 9mm is only going to change its performance by small margins if you lengthen the barrel and increase its velocity, but it isn’t going to put it into any new energy or performance classification. The round is still optimized to burn its powder load in 4″ of barrel, give or take. Even doubling to an 8″ or quadrupling to 16″ full carbine barrel isn’t going to level you into a untapped terminal ballistics category with pistol ammunition. For most rounds it will, at best, give you an extra 100 to 200 fps on the round, and not change its wounding profile.

You still, with a PCC, have a 9mm (or .40, .45, 10mm, etc) handgun from the raw physics standpoint.

Now let’s discuss what you do get.

Ergonomics

The physics are still handgun, but the handling is all carbine.

You take the it from the one point of control, on the pistol’s grip, to the three points of control a carbine offers off of the foregrip/handguard, the pistol grip, and the stock or brace.

By improving your controlling ergonomics you improve you hit percentages, and the speed and distance with which you can deliver those hits.

By improving your hit percentages you improve the effects on target of individual shots. While we didn’t drastically change the physics of each shot, we increased how easily it is to make those shots and how many of those shots you can make if you need to.

Bringing us to point number two.

Capacity

Going from 5 to 21, given a realistic range on handguns employed in the carry and home defense roles, to a 20 to 50 with an easy mode (in the mathematical sense) capacity being 30 to 35 available, platform dependent, gives you options. Rather let us say it gives you opportunities.

As a good friend often states, and I paraphrase here, “One of the rounds you have is going to get the job done. It might be the first one, before you set it off even. It might be the third one in your second magazine. But wherever that round is that does the job, you have to find it.”

So we, by going to PCC, have increased our hit percentages and our number of chances to solve the problem so far.

Ancillaries

I’m not going to spend a tremendous amount of time on this one because the long and short of it is just about every advantageous item you can add to a carbine (optics, lights, slings) are available in good forms for a PCC. Certain PCC’s can even still benefit from running a single point, although my personal preference remains a 2-point adjustable.

Tally it all up and you get…

The PCC is alright.

You get many of the advantages of the carbine in a platform with a physics package that is adequate to the task.

You can save a little in the size and weight categories over 5.56/5.45 types. You can additionally consolidate your logistic lookout to the same ammunition as your carry gun. Whether this is a consideration for you or not is a personal question to ask and answer, but it is a point of consideration.

While ancillary choices can drastically influence the cost of a system, when you consider all aspects of the two carbines above you get most of the critical items required out of the system on the left that the system on the right provides.

The system on the right will run you about $4,000 to $5,000. It is a really nice rifle, with a premium optic and light suite, and a premium suppressor for noise indoors.

The system on the left will cost you half of that. It retains a premium optic suite with a solid light that also grants active night vision aiming, a capability the gun on the right doesn’t have.

Neither optic relies on batteries either, some folks like that capability and I lean into it myself at times. I like etched reticle systems, mostly due to astigmatism.

Pistol calibers also will be mildly less antagonistic to the ears in interior spaces thanks to lower pressures and velocities, but adding a can to the package will only push you to about 60% of the cost on the carbine and bring it far more hearing safe.

The carbines’ costs could obviously be adjusted, but they are wearing optics and lights to take advantage of available capabilities. The CZ could do 100 yards here if asked, other 9mm can too. In the home defense role a justified shot at that distance is highly unlikely, absurdly unlikely. The M4gery URG-I is set to take advantage of it’s capable range, because it can and I shoot it like that. But were I to take a shot against somebody with it, the realistic range I could justify that shot is pretty much an identical one I could with the 9mm CZ.

So, again, the PCC is alright. You are picking your physics package.